This might be a hard pill for a lot of people on here to swallow, but for the average user open source is not a feature. Free is, but the user experience is often worse than for closed source software, so it’s a hard sell even at free sometimes.
I’m always very happy to find Foss apps that defy that stereotype, but they’re far and few between from my experience.
Not trying to shit on Foss apps with this, but I see way too many people acting like the open source aspect is a selling point in and of itself, and it’s not except for to the most techy of users.
In my experience most of them are pretty easy to set up with basic computer skills and a look at the documentation. There are two big problems with that though.
Basic computer skills aren’t as common as you would think.
FOSS documentation isn’t written for people without those skills.
That leads to a lot of issues that aren’t terribly complicated to solve but would be showstoppers for regular users. I would not consider myself a high level user but I’ve managed to get quite a few applications up and running with nothing but time and a willingness to be frustrated. The few people I’ve gone into details with about those applications had no clue what I was talking about. Mostly because they would never tolerate the frustration required to get past the initial setup and have therefore never learned how to do any of it.
I also find it very hard to switch to Foss stuff for professional uses most of the time, because of the often rough user experience, or sometimes lacking industry standard features. When you do something full time you want to be using the smoothest version of what you need.
I don’t blame the devs for this either. It’s often one or a few enthusiasts doing it in their spare time for free, so I certainly don’t say this in an entitled way. It’s just the reality.
Yeah paid software babies users, often to the point of being annoying. FOSS assumes you can troubleshoot complex issues effectively. There’s a happy medium somewhere in there but like you said, it’s tough to get there with a limited volunteer dev team.
This might be a hard pill, but… A lot of selfish people like to be selfish, selfishly. The point of a community is doing a bit more work personally or sometimes making a light sacrifice so that others do better as well.
You should actually slow down and re-read your statement, maybe you don’t know how you sound? Feels like you have kind of a , “sure, I could help out homeless people with some spare change, but where is my personal benefit in that? Now, im always very happy to find the person that I give $.50 in change to and they give me a dollar back to defy the stereotype, but those people are few and far between IME.”
Dude, give your AI girlfriend some crypto so you can ask her a question, and then ask her to define “empathy” for you.
I’m sorry if any of that is a hard pill to swallow.
This might be a hard pill for a lot of people on here to swallow, but for the average user open source is not a feature. Free is, but the user experience is often worse than for closed source software, so it’s a hard sell even at free sometimes.
I’m always very happy to find Foss apps that defy that stereotype, but they’re far and few between from my experience.
Not trying to shit on Foss apps with this, but I see way too many people acting like the open source aspect is a selling point in and of itself, and it’s not except for to the most techy of users.
In my experience most of them are pretty easy to set up with basic computer skills and a look at the documentation. There are two big problems with that though.
Basic computer skills aren’t as common as you would think.
FOSS documentation isn’t written for people without those skills.
That leads to a lot of issues that aren’t terribly complicated to solve but would be showstoppers for regular users. I would not consider myself a high level user but I’ve managed to get quite a few applications up and running with nothing but time and a willingness to be frustrated. The few people I’ve gone into details with about those applications had no clue what I was talking about. Mostly because they would never tolerate the frustration required to get past the initial setup and have therefore never learned how to do any of it.
This is very true, great point.
I also find it very hard to switch to Foss stuff for professional uses most of the time, because of the often rough user experience, or sometimes lacking industry standard features. When you do something full time you want to be using the smoothest version of what you need.
I don’t blame the devs for this either. It’s often one or a few enthusiasts doing it in their spare time for free, so I certainly don’t say this in an entitled way. It’s just the reality.
Yeah paid software babies users, often to the point of being annoying. FOSS assumes you can troubleshoot complex issues effectively. There’s a happy medium somewhere in there but like you said, it’s tough to get there with a limited volunteer dev team.
This might be a hard pill, but… A lot of selfish people like to be selfish, selfishly. The point of a community is doing a bit more work personally or sometimes making a light sacrifice so that others do better as well.
You should actually slow down and re-read your statement, maybe you don’t know how you sound? Feels like you have kind of a , “sure, I could help out homeless people with some spare change, but where is my personal benefit in that? Now, im always very happy to find the person that I give $.50 in change to and they give me a dollar back to defy the stereotype, but those people are few and far between IME.”
Dude, give your AI girlfriend some crypto so you can ask her a question, and then ask her to define “empathy” for you.
I’m sorry if any of that is a hard pill to swallow.
I’ll be honest, that was so random and meandering I don’t even know what pill I’m supposed to be having trouble with. 🤷♂️
“AI girlfriend, do you like me for me? Like even if I didn’t pay you?”
“I really want to answer, sweetie… Just deposit more crypto first”